Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Puyehue erupts

Here is a link to a story covering the eruption of the Puyehue volcano in southern Chile, along with a series of spectacular photographs of the eruption. The last time this particular volcano erupted was in 1960.

The origin of volcanoes is something of a geological mystery under conventional theories, a subject we have already touched on in this previous post.

The hydroplate theory of Walt Brown argues that the magma which erupts in volcanoes originated from the friction of the sliding hydroplates during the cataclysmic flood event. The location of volcanic activity along the "forward edge" of the continents is consistent with this explanation. The volcanoes in Chile, which forms the "leading edge" of the continent of South America, certainly fit this model.

Depending on one's model for the interior of the earth, the origin of magma poses some difficulties. Some models posit a mostly solid crust and mantle region, with a molten outer core. However, the outer core is so deep (1,800 miles below the surface) that it cannot be the origin of volcanic magma.

Also, as Dr. Brown explains in this section of his online book, the existence of extremely hot pockets of magma closer to the surface pose some problems for conventional theories that assume an earth formed billions of years ago. The principles of physics would argue that major heat differences should have evened out in the intervening billions of years. So, what events caused the formation of molten rock close enough to earth's surface to erupt occasionally? Uniformitarian theories have a hard time explaining this molten rock, but the catastrophic events put forward in the hydroplate theory do not.

As you consider the awe-inspiring sight of the erupting volcano in Chile, it is worthwhile to reflect on the origins of volcanoes.